Got pulled on as an assistant for my friend, Paul Empson, on Wednesday and Thursday. The whole concept behind the shoot was supposed to be summertime bohemian chic in Morocco. Well, French weather had other plans. Behold the snow that paralyzed France and definitely threw our work way off.

I have to say that this was my favorite shoot that I’ve done because everything went wrong: snow, overcast day, not optimal space to get the photos we needed, etc. It was a disaster. So to make it work, we had to get creative and unconventional at times, and therefore, I learned so much in one day. And we had a great time doing it because the conditions were so ridiculous that we all became giddy and punch drunk.

All transport (cars, taxis, buses, trains, everything) was late, cancelled, or just shut down completely. We were an hour outside of Paris in Coubron and stranded. The only solution we could find was to hitchhike; not an easy feat with 9 people, equipment and clothes. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, we made it to the train station and eventually had a train back into town.

On day 2 of shooting, we scraped the idea of the house and headed over to Le Studio Rouchonto fill out the rest of the story. Here are some photos of the other assistants, Loc and Nicola, and the model, Annabel. It was a lovely last shoot for a while in Paris. I’m moving to Washington, D.C. in a couple of weeks. Read all about the move at Foreign Capital.

Like this:

On Saturday and Monday, I had the pleasure of assisting Paul Empson on two photo shoots for the ELLE Magazine Lingerie Issue.

From my point of view, the whole experience was surprising. My personal work has generally been very photojournalistic. I get my kicks by catching a moment that is completely spontaneous and that other people would have missed. In that sense, there are no do-overs, no retakes, no one to come and make sure that the hair, makeup, clothes, etc. are pristine. It is or it isn’t and that’s the game. So I wasn’t so sure if I would like fashion and was approaching this as a learning experience; A chance to learn about lighting, client relations, equipment and whatnot. I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did.

I really appreciated the satisfaction of building an image from scratch. From the lights and the shadows to the positioning of the model to the direction of what her face should show emotionally… the whole image is ultimately your creation. And there is still the thrill of the stolen perfect moment when you capture exactly what you want on film (or I guess memory card these days) and you know you’ve got it.

I also loved the collaboration of it. The fact that you are blending the creativity of the photographer, the photographers’ assistants, the creative director, his or her assistants, the hair stylist, the makeup artist, and the model is just intoxicating when you think about the end product. I’ll run the risk of sounding cliché when I say that I got a little high off of the energy of it all. And don’t even get me started on the happiness of being surrounded all day by people who love what they’re doing.